Thomas Russell was a lawyer, businessman, politician, financier.
1 DNZB
Thomas Russell was arguably the outstanding commercial figure in nineteenth century New Zealand. He is said to have been born in Cork, Ireland, in 1830, the son of Thomas Russell and his wife, Mary Roberts. In 1833 Thomas and Mary Russell with their two children, Thomas, aged three years, and Sarah, aged 22 months, sailed from Liverpool, England, as steerage passengers in the Lady East, bound for Australia. For the next seven years Thomas Russell the Elder, as he became known, was a farmer in Maitland, New South Wales. In April 1840 the family sailed to New Zealand in the Lady Leith. After some months at Kororareka (Russell), they shifted to the new capital of Auckland. Over the next few years Thomas the Elder was by turn farmer and carpenter. Mary Russell ran a small drapery store at the foot of Shortland Street to help support the growing family. Of an evening husband and wife joined to give their four sons and two daughters 'strict' and 'regular' school lessons.
The sudden death of Mary Russell in 1847 at the age of 36 was a sore blow to the family, whose unity was further disrupted during the Californian goldrushes when the father, infected by the 'yellow fever' like so many Aucklanders, departed for the diggings with two of his sons. Thomas Russell junior, now 20, and mature beyond his years, was left behind in Auckland to be custodian of the remaining family.
Young Thomas Russell was tall, dark, energetic, intelligent and masterful. He was also extraordinarily ambitious, and even as a youth showed the resourcefulness to realise those ambitions. The story was later told how, when he heard at the height of the Californian goldrushes that there was a dearth of vegetables at the diggings, he bought up all the onions he could obtain in Auckland, and sent them to San Francisco where they realised 'enormously high prices'.
At that time he was an employee of Thomas Outhwaite, the foremost Auckland lawyer, to whom he had been articled since 1844. In November 1851, as soon as Russell was licensed to practise, characteristically, he asked Outhwaite for a full partnership. When Outhwaite turned him down, he set up in practice on his own.
Russell's new firm soon prospered, helped by his connection with the Wesleyan church, in whose affairs he had immersed himself from his youth up. The 'modest piety' he showed as a Sunday school teacher and lay preacher won him the esteem of church leaders, especially the Reverend Walter Lawry, general superintendent of the Wesleyan mission in New Zealand. Russell became Lawry's protégé. Much of the legal work of the Wesleyan missions was put his way. It was later reported that portions of the church's accumulated funds were entrusted to Russell; these he 'managed with such prudence and care, ?he soon amassed a considerable sum of money'. It is also known that Lawry diverted much of the private business of Auckland Wesleyans towards him. The relationship was further strengthened when on 18 July 1854 at Auckland Russell married Lawry's niece Emeline Vercoe. Lawry officiated at the ceremony.
Thomas did not exploit his early success for his own advantage, but used it to help his younger brothers, towards whom he had a strong sense of family trust. He articled to himself his brothers, William in 1856 and John Benjamin in 1857, and took James into his office in 1858. By the early 1860s all three had been admitted as solicitors. Each of the four brothers founded legal practices which have endured to the present day.
As a lawyer, Thomas Russell's forte 'was more in conveyancing and in consultation': he was 'too speculative, enterprising, and energetic for the sedentary life of a barrister'. He was a businessman first, and a lawyer second. While still in his 20s he became an acknowledged member of the settlement's commercial élite, and an active supporter of the Progress Party which in the 1850s represented the interests of Auckland's business community. Largely through his initiative the New Zealand Insurance Company was formed in 1859. In the following decade he was behind the promotion of a number of financial institutions and goldmining companies.
In 1861 Russell was taken into partnership on a basis of full equality by Frederick Whitaker, his senior by 18 years and an outstanding lawyer, who was already established as a leading politician. Within two years the firm of Whitaker and Russell was reputed to be the richest practice in the colony.
Russell more than any man was the founder of the Bank of New Zealand in 1861; of that there is no question. What is less certain is his motive in promoting this bank. A story told by his enemy Falconer Larkworthy is that the manager of the Bank of New South Wales in Auckland, having doubts about Russell's credit, 'shilly-shallied' about renewing his account, thereby inducing Russell to establish his own bank. There is independent evidence that Russell was at that time entirely solvent: in 'good practice and in good circumstances'. Nevertheless in subsequent years Russell used his influence within the bank to get generous if not improper advances, in order to build up a substantial private fortune. He immigrated to Sydney to Auckland in the Lady Lieth in April 1840.
1 He emigrated from NZ to ENG in 1874.
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